oftentimes overpower his resolution. But each comforts himself that his faults are not without precedent, for the best; and the wisest men have givea way to the violence of sudden temptations. There are men who always consound the praise of goodness with the practice, and who believe themselves mild and moderate, charitable and faithful, because they have exerted their eloquence in commendation of mildness, fidelity, and other virtue*. This is an error almost univerfal among those that converse much with dependents, with such whole sear or interest dispofes them to a seeming reverence for any declamation, however enthusiastick, and submission to any boast, however arrogant. Having none to recall their attention to their lives, they rate themselves by the goodness of their opinions, and forget how much more easily men may shew their virtue in their talk, than in their actions. The tribe is likewise very numerous of thofe who regulate their lives, not by the standard of religion, but the measure of other men's virtue; who lull their own remorle with the remembrance of crimes more atrocious than their own, and seem to believe that they are not bad while another can be found worse. For escaping these and a thoufand other deceits, many expedients have been propofed. Some have recommended the frequent consultation of a wise friend, admitted to intimacy, and encouraged to sincerity. But this appears a remedy by no means adapted to general use: for in order to secure the virtue of one, it presupposes more virtue in two than wiil generally be found. In the first, such a desire desire of rectitude and amendment, as may incline him to hear his own accufation from the mouth of him whom he esteems, and by whom, theresore, he .will always hope that his faults are not discovered; and in the second such zeal and honesty, as will make him content for his friend's advantage to lofe his kindness. . A long lise may be passed without finding a friend in whofe understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whofe opinion we can value at once for its justness and sincerity. A weak man, however honest, is not qualified to judge. A man of the world, however penetrating, is not sit to counsel. Friends are often chofen for similitude of manners, and theresore each palliates the other's failings, because they are his own. Friends are tender, and unwilling to give pain, or they are interested, and searsul to offend. These objections have inclined others to advise, that he who would know himself, should consult his enemies, remember the reproaches that are vented to his face, and listen for the censures that are uttered in private. For his great business is to know his faults, and those malignity will discover, and resentment will reveal. But this precept may be often frustrated; for it seldom happens that rivals or opponents are suffered to come near enough to know our conduct with so much exactness as that conscience should allow and reflect the accufation. The charge of an enemy Is often totally false, and commonly so mingled with falsehood, that the mind takes advantage from the failure of one part to discredit credit the rest, and never suffers any disturbance asterward from sich partial reports. Yet it seems that enemies have been always sound by experience the most faithsul monitors j sor adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, and this effect: it must produce by withdrawing flatterers, whose business it is to hide our weaknesses from us, or by giving loose to malice, and licence to reproach; or at least by cutting off those pleasures which called us away from meditation on our own conduct, and repressing that pride which too easily persuades us, that we merit whatever we enjoy. Part of these benesits it is in every man's power to procure to himself, by assigning proper portions of his lise to tlie examination of the rest, and by putting himself frequently in such a situation by retirement and abstraction, as may weaken the influence of external objects. By this practice he may obtain the solitude of adversity without its melancholy, its instructions without its censures, and its sensibility without its perturbations. The necessity of setting the world at a distance from us, when we are to take a survey of ourselves, has sent many from high stations to the severities of a monastick lise; and indeed, every man deeply engaged in business, is all regard to another state be not extinguished, must have the conviction, though, perhaps, not the resolution of Valdesso, who, when he solicited Charles the fifth to dismiss him, being asked, whether he retired upon disgust, answered that he laid down his commission, for no other rea soa son but because there ought to be fome time for fober rcfletlion between the life of a foldier and his death. There, are sew conditions which do not entangle us with sublunary hopes and sears, from which it is necessary to be at intervals disencumbered, that we may place ourselves in his presence who views effects in their causes, and actions in their motives; that we may, as Chillingworth expresses it, consider things as if there were no other beings in the world but God and ourselves; or, to use language yet more awsul, may commune with our own hearts, and be ftilL Death, says Seneca, salls heavy upon him who is too much known to others, and too little to himself; and Pontanus, a man celebrated among the early restorers of literature, thought the study of our own hearts of so much importance, that he has recommended it from his tomb. Sum Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, quern amaverunt bona mufæy fufpexerunt viri probi, bonestaverunt reges domini; jam Jcis qui Jim, vel qui potius fuerim; ego vero te, hof es, nos cere in tenebris nequeo, Jed teipfum ut nofeas rogo. "I am Pon"tanus, beloved by the powers of literature, admired ** by men of worth, and dignified by the monarchs "of the world. Thou knowest now who I am, *' or more properly who I was. For thee, stranger, "I who am in darkness cannot know thee, but I "intreat thee to know thyself." I hope every reader of this paper will consider himself as engaged to the observation of a precept, which the wisdom and virtue of all ages have concurred to ensorce, a precept dictated by philofophers, inculcated by poets, and ratified by saints. Numb. cg. Tuesday, June 26, 1750. Prudent futuri temp aris cxitum Fas trepidet Hor. But God has wisely hid from human light The dark decrees of future site, THERE is nothing recommended with greater frequency among the gayer poets of antiquity, than the secure possession of the present hour, and the dismission of all the cares which intrude upon our quiet, or hinder, by importunate perturbations, the enjoyment of thofe delights which our condition happens to set before us. The ancient poets are, indeed, by no means unexceptionable teachers of morality; their precepts are to be always considered as the sallies of a genius, intent rather upon giving pleasure than instruction, eager to take every advantage of insinuation, and provided the passions can be engaged on its side, very little solicitous about the suffrage of reason. The darkness and uncertainty through which the heathens were compelled to wander in the pursuit of happiness, may, indeed, be alleged as an excuse sor many of their seducing invitations to immediate enjoyment, which the moderns, by whom they have been imitated, have not to plead. It is no wonder that |